


An unexpected adventure

by Dominatrix



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU: Modern Setting, secret agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William Baggins is an average man, with an average house, an average job and an average life. Never would he have believed that a single event could turn his life upside down and change him forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The beginning of all things

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is inspired by this video, which was brought to life by the astonishing Captain Juni. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQg-AwUc_9E  
> I want to thank you very much for having this brillant idea, and I hope you like what I made of it.  
> Also a huge thank you to Adriana, who was at least as much excited as I was.  
> If you'd like to have more information about the characters, what they look like and what history they have, feel free to visit my tumblr account I set up for this fanfic: home-is-behind-us.tumblr.com  
> Love you all, Liz ♥
> 
> PS: I hid some references to other fandoms in this chapter, and also in the ones which will be following. If you find any, write them into a comment. First one to find them can wish for anything they like in the course of the story. Always wanted Thorin to give Bilbo shooting lessons? Your wish is my command.  
> I'm sure you get my point.

The blonde man stared at the empty computer screen in front of him and tried to kill the viciously blinking cursor with a single glance from him usually gentle brown eyes.

_Don’t blink. Stop it. Don’t. Blink._

When he failed he sighed lowly, taking his hands off the black keyboard once more. His therapist had told him that he should write down what had happened. She told him every single time they met. It would make it easier to understand, to get over it. He had gone through so much, and he needed to let it out. At least that was what Dr. Amelia Freegate said. But he didn’t believe a thing about it.

There were many, many reasons why William Baggins couldn’t just write down what happened, let alone on such a numb thing as a personal blog.

  1. Until now he had no idea how his life could have come this far.
  2. He had never been too fond of technique and mass-communication. Especially not after he had learned how devastating and cruel a single code could be for the fate of people he trusted.
  3. There was no way to describe what had been happening in the last year. There were no words in any language, neither still spoken nor a language that had died centuries ago, to picture the things he had seen, the grief he had felt, the friendship he had savoured.
  4. If there was any chance, he never wanted to get over the last year. It had been a year full of pain, and sadness, and terror. But it had also been a year full of glee, of joy, and of friendship. William had experienced friendship in forms he would have never dared to dream about before. He had been an average man, with an average life and an average house. How could he be expected to do something brave, something glorious? Something people would talk about even after he died? Something that would give others the reason to think about him?



He had never known that he desired to be _recognised_ , in any way possible. But he did. He might not have known when his journey began, but he was sure when it ended. There was more to life than getting up, preparing for work and spending the day in an office that was just as grey and stationary as his dreams had been. He hadn’t craved an adventure, to be honest, he had feared it, had pushed every opportunity to do something where he couldn’t see the end of it as far away from him as he could. It had worked just fine, for over thirty years of his life. It hadn’t been a bad life, but William could say without a single bat of an eye that it had been a blind life.

Had he ever been aware what was happening outside the safe havens of Hobbiton? That every cigarette break he took at exactly 11:30 every day could – in the end, after a story he wouldn’t have believed if anyone had told him – change his fate forever? There had been no need to look over the rim of his personal little world.

William had always thought that this had to be everything a man could desire.He had a job he loathed too little to search another one, friends that were too dull and too content to get into fights with them, a house that was just as cosy and homelike like a blanket fort he had built in the living room when he had been a child. There were women in his life, too, but none of them had stayed long enough to leave a lasting impression when they vanished again.

Never before had William known what it really meant to miss somebody, like it was impossible to breathe without them. Now he knew. But he didn’t wish for another fate, didn’t wish that all this hadn’t happened. He was ready to live with the stinging pain in his shoulder when he moved too fast and too much. He had been shot about seven or eight months ago, he wasn’t exactly sure.

Of course he could have called Ori; he would know it right to the spot. Because Ori’s brain was as big as a galaxy – at least it seemed like it, and William wouldn’t be too surprised if he would even still know what socks he was wearing on the evening they first met in William’s house.

Back then William would have never believed that he would actually be fond of all of them, that he was proud to call them his friends, his friends in peace and battle. He would have never believed that there were days when he woke up and was sure to hear the roar of the helicopters or the dazzling, mind-racking noise of sirens right over his head.

His therapist said it was post-traumatic stress.

But how little did she know. How little did she know about the smile that curled in the corners of his mouth when he remembered the days with the Company.

It would have been worth a thousand shooting wounds just to get to know Thorin Oakenshield.


	2. I may not have told you everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies,  
> I'm very very excited about you liking the fanfic so far, and I hope you're enjoying yourselves. Though I have to say I'm kinda disappointed by you not finding that many fandom references in the first chap. My beloved Adriana was the only one figuring out I was referring to Sherlock (BBC). But there are three other references. One other from Sherlock (BBC), one from the canon Sherlock Holmes (is it obvious that I'm a passionate Sherlockian?) and one from Doctor Who. I'd be thrilled if you'd find them.  
> And of course I have referred to fandoms in this chapter, too. Never missing a good opportunity to release the inner fangirl.  
> Love, Dominatrix ♥

A sharp ring ripped him out of his thoughts and back into reality, back into his comfortable armchair.

The red velvet on it had outlived many things in William’s life. His father, who had always been sitting in it, reading, muttering under his breath while listening to the radio, pretending not to be able to hear his wife, Belladonna, call from the garden. Until one day he hadn’t even pretended it. The book he had been holding – it had been “Mr Bliss”, one of his favourites – had been falling to the reddish parquet floor with a soft, hollow sound, and if William hadn’t been there by himself he wouldn’t have believed it, but the sound was similar to a sigh. A last sigh of a book that knew it had lost its master.

He had turned around, his analysis on Shakespeare’s Caliban still on his knees; pen in his right hand, while there was still the faint outcry of Belladonna Tuk’s voice, calling her husband to perform a duty he would never be able to perform again. An aneurysm. Right in his brain. The doctor had said that it had been a painless death. Fast. Merciful, almost. It had given Belladonna and her son no real comfort. William knew that it didn’t matter in the end how a person died. Whether they suffered while breathing the last intake of air…Did it really make a difference? They were gone after that anyway.

Sighing he got up, forgetting his crutch next to him, not remembering that he usually was in pain. Well. Psychosomatic pain. It had been the reason why Gandalf had suggested that William should visit Dr. Freegate, and Gandalf had often been right about things, if not always. No, he corrected himself while he paced to the door slowly, he hadn’t been always right. Still he was wondering whether Gandalf had predicted the possible outcomes of their journey, their “adventure”, who he had called it when they had first met.

Maybe they all had thought that it would have been easier. William would never find out. Maybe they had even known that some of them would never come back, with the hint of optimism that it would all work out. That, after all, the good outlived the bad. They had. The good had been triumphant. But they had had to pay a price.

A price about which William was still not sure if it had been worth paying.

“My dear Frodo” he said smiling after opening the beautiful door out of green-coloured glass and dark wood. A boy – no, by now he had become rather a man – replied his smile. These were the moments in which William remembered why he actually did like being around this foolish boy, barely reasonable enough to not kill himself by accident before his first cup of tea in the morning.

Gandalf had once said – and he would say it many, many more times in the future – that Frodo was just like he had wanted William to be much earlier. Still William wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or an insult. As he knew Gandalf, it was probably a mixture of both.

“Come on in and take a seat.” He didn’t even need to tell the younger boy with the ice-clear eyes to feel home here. After his parents had died, Frodo had been glad to be watched over by William. He would never actually say it out loud, but he was surprised by the way his uncle had changed after being away a year. He barely spoke about it, and if he did, he tried to be as vague and as indecisive as it was possible. But not today. He had phoned him yesterday, with the question whether Frodo still wanted to know everything about his first – and probably last – adventure.

Frodo had said “Yes” before he had even realized it. Curiosity was no word fitting the state of mind he was in right now. He ached for information, like he had always for everything to understand people. And he felt like he was missing an important point about William. Before he had vanished he had been an average and – to be honest – rather dull man, and if Frodo had to describe him, it would not have taken him longer than a minute. But after he returned he was different. He was  _more._

Starting to have secrets, sometimes humming a melody that sounded strange and oddly familiar at the same time, his eyes flaming up with real passion when he broke his unspoken vow and told Frodo more about his journey than he had promised himself to do.

Frodo was sitting opposite to the red velvet armchair, knowing it was his uncle’s favourite place in all of the huge Victorian house.

“What do you have to tell me?” he asked, curiosity flashing on his face. He had left his backpack in the hall, as he always did, mindlessly letting it drop wherever he stopped.

A year ago William might have criticised him for it – in fact he had done so more times than he could actually count. But after a journey like this…He could ignore small things like these. He cleared his throat and sat down in his armchair. It was only then, when he saw the crutch leaning on his desk, that he remembered he used to feel pain. Faster than he could blink it was back, numbing his mind for a second while he stretched his leg out with a suppressed moan. Concern was in Frodo’s voice when he spoke again, already half on his feet.

“Do you need help?”

“No, no. It’s alright” William replied, sorting his thoughts for a moment before he remembered what he had wanted to say.

“You asked me once if I had told you everything there was to know about my adventures.” His nephew simply nodded, feeling that now was the time to keep silent. There were not many opportunities when his uncle was ready to talk. Had he known how much William was about to tell him he probably would have fainted because of the tension building up inside of him. The boy’s eager, clear gaze still on his face, William continued talking, watching his hands – the hands of an average man – without really believing that these rather clumsy hands had held a gun, that there had been blood on them. That these hands had killed people. There was a moment of silence between them, heavy silence William felt committed to break.

“Well, I can honestly say I've told you the truth.” He looked up again, watching Frodo smiling in an encouraging way. Kili had used to do this, too. Frodo reminded him of Kili, sometimes. It was possible that in another world, another reality, they could have become friends. But now this possibility wasn’t there any longer. He cleared his throat again and longed for a glass of water, but forced himself to stay focussed on this.

“I may not have told you all of it.”

 


	3. Concerning Hobbits

In fact, there was little Bilbo had told his nephew. Frodo knew that Bilbo had been on an adventure with a group of men none of the people in Hobbiton had ever heard of, and a man who was only known too well, but not in a good way. He had started too much unrest, had given the cue on too many thoughts, and he was the main reason why some boys and girls from the Shire just wandered off into the blue one day. Most of them were gone for good, some even completely swallowed from the face of the earth, without anybody knowing where exactly they were, and they scarcely returned.

But if they did, they weren’t the same afterwards, and some families were even so cruel to say that it would have been better if their offspring had never returned. To be honest, Bilbo hadn’t been able to blame them for it before he started his own adventure. The people in the Shire liked it when it was calm, quiet and peaceful.

They weren’t meant to go on adventures, to explore the Seven Seas, to risk their lives. Some said that they were wasting their time with smoking and gardening, that they were missing the point of being alive. However, people from the Shire had always seen their fortune in a good meal and a warm fire in their houses. Not even the mocking nickname they were given by more adventurous people could disturb their quietness.

“Halflings” they were called, a word which evolved from the assumption that they were living mere “half lives” because they didn’t engage in anything that could mean not being home for dinner, a state which filled their hearts with sheer terror.

Some called them narrow-minded, and old-fashioned, but they insisted that it was rather tradition and carefulness.

However, like in every society – and the people of the Shire were really a society, a closed mechanism that didn’t actually care much about what happened outside – there were some people that didn’t quite fit in.

In this case it was the family Tuk.

The Tuks had always been a guarantee for adventure, or, how the other Halflings would call it, “obscenity”. More often than any other family they would simply lose some of their children, but instead of being completely out of their minds because God knows what could happen to him, they could get in danger or be killed or actually get to know bigger parts of the world – a frightening thought, really – they would just sit back in their armchairs, look into the fire and say: “They’ll come back someday. And if they don’t, they’ll have their reasons.”

This of course was the kind of attitude other families just couldn’t understand, and it soon built up a mixture of admiration and mistrust between the Tuks and the others. Most men wanted to be like a Tuk when they grew up, and would remember the adventurous tales of the Great Tuk with a stinging feeling of regret in their hearts as they grew old. But it was far easier for them to refuse these feelings, to exchange them for mockery, just to ensure them that this, the life they were living, was in fact the right one.

The more time passed, the less scandalous the Tuk’s behaviour became, the tales of great adventures, of bravery and of boys and girls coming back as heroes became scarcer and scarcer until they vanished completely, and when Belladonna Tuk, the most gifted daughter of the Great Tuk, married a Baggins, the Shire was sighing in relief.

The Baggins' had never been known for a great spirit. They were typical people from Hobbiton, or Hobbits, how they were called. Calm. Peaceful. Predictable. Easy to handle. And William, their only son, had never actually proven to be different. After his father had died he had grown only closer to Hobbiton, and the thought of leaving his home had never filled his heart with joy.

However, he had somehow gotten into an adventure without wanting it, let alone planning it. No. His adventure – at least the beginning of it – was the deed of just the man who was already known to spread nothing but unrest in the Shire.

Gandalf.


	4. It all starts with a cigarette

He remembered the first time he had met Gandalf in crystal-clear details.

Of course it hadn’t been quite the first time, they had met about twenty years before, but when he had interrupted his cigarette break, William had no idea who was standing in front of him, let alone what Gandalf had planned.

William appreciated it if his life was predictable, and he encountered adventurous happenings only with great discomfort and if he was really forced to do it.

He also appreciated it if he knew about these adventurous happenings before they rambled in his flat in the figure of a dozen unshaved – and mostly also unshowered – men. When he looked around the living room in an attempt to find a place to start, some right words to begin with, he still couldn’t believe that Thorin and his company had been sitting here, eating, drinking and scaring the wits out of William.

William recognized that there weren’t any good words if he wanted to keep his story short.

“About a year ago, your uncle William joined a force of secret agents from all over the world, including the CIA, BND and an underground organisation called “The Company” to fight a terrorist who tried to make the current governments collapse with data which dates back to the Cold War.”

Yes. His nephew would surely believe that. He would sit there, nodding and listening closely.

And then he would take him to a mental asylum.

No. If he really wanted to make Frodo believe this, we would have to go a little further. He smiled at Frodo reassuringly, who still sat opposite to him, his blue eyes wide with amazement and impatience, ready to take everything in William told him.

“It all starts with a cigarette.”

* * *

William Baggins was useless without his first cigarette in the morning. His colleagues had learned it quite quick, as a single one of them transformed him from a grumpy, sometimes a bit snobby pal into a likeable, friendly guy. After they got behind this, they had started to be very keen on keeping his nicotine level on a steady base. 

It was his biggest weakness, and William liked to imagine that it was his only one. He had never had a weakness for women or alcohol, or exaggerated luxury. But he liked a tiny cigarette once in a while. It calmed him - though he tried to avoid being so furious that he needed to calm down. He liked it when it was calm, when he could already tell on Monday what he would wear on Friday. This was his own small amount of luxury: This complete security.

As a man from Hobbiton, there were two things that really mattered to him: A well-filled store room and security. Security meant comfort for him, and William wasn’t a man who could abandon that. He loathed unannounced visitors just as much as camping; it both only endangered being in time for dinner.

In a fluent motion, he turned his back to the mild-tempered but rather sharp-blowing wind to light his cigarette. He could catch an eye of his mirror picture in the huge windows of the building, registered with great pleasure that he was all on his own, and when he felt the bitter smoke in his throat he closed his eyes to shut out the rest of the world just for a second and turned around again. His eyes still closed he kept the smoke inside his lungs a little longer and then slowly exhaled it with a content, low sigh.

This. This was what life was meant to be.

For a second he could forget the tension up in the office because Amanda and Martin had broken up again – it was the third time in five weeks now, and even the patient William was annoyed by the ever-ongoing tirades Martin held when they were in the kitchen, drinking tea.

The tea was horrible, but it was better than nothing, though surely not good enough to risk bleeding out of his ears because they surrendered to Martin’s whiny stories about how unfair it all was.

For a while William had tried to exchange cigarettes for tea, but he couldn’t handle the nicotine withdrawal if it was combined with Martin.

There was only so much a man could do.


End file.
